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Proactive policing can be defined as they types of self-initiated activities police can take when they are not responding to Calls for Service. One of the effects of significantly reduced manpower in New Orleans has been a drop in several incident types that can be used to define NOPD’s level of proactive policing. These measures are: drug violations, curfew violations, suspicious person stops, drunk driving stops and illegal gun violations.

As of the end of August all of these measures are on pace to be down between 33 percent and 86 percent relative to their totals in 2012. Illegal possession of a firearm incidents are on pace for a slight rebound in 2016 relative to 2015’s total but all the other measures are set to decline again in 2016.

Here’s how they stack up.

Year

Drug Violation

Curfew Violation

Suspicious Person

Drunk Driving

Illegal Gun

2012

3,396

1,451

28,514

1,274

387

2013

3,291

824

22,666

1,120

325

2014

2,629

376

18,937

1,190

250

2015

2,252

277

17,026

787

236

2016*

2,086

206

16,354

572

258

Change 2012-2016

-38.6%

-85.8%

-42.7%

-55.1%

-33.3%

* Pace as of 8/30/2016

The drop in proactive policing has been steady since 2012 as seen in the below graph. This graph measures the rolling number of incidents over 365 days since the start of 2013 relative to the number of each incident type in 2012. Curfew violations lead the way with an 86 percent drop in under four years.